John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

Will I Ever Recover? (Published 11/30/2010)

Q:

“S”, a Tributes.com visitor from Michigan asks: “Why is getting over my dad’s suicide so hard? Will I ever recover? I tried everything. I don’t want to let him go.”

A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear S,

Thanks for your note and question. Part of the problem is in the language, “getting over.” In fact, the issue of Getting Over is dealt with to a limited degree in our article called Time Doesn’t Heal – Actions Do, in which we pose the question: I have heard that it takes two years to get over the death of a loved one, five years to get over the death of a parent, and you never get over the death of a child. Is this true? Our response:It is impossible to answer that question without first debunking the phrase "get over." “Getting over” implies forgetting. The fact is, you would never forget your child who died, nor would you forget a parent who died, or a spouse, a sibling, or anyone else with whom you had a meaningful relationship.

Of course for you, that means you’ll never forget your dad.

The next critical issue for you is the fact that suicide automatically creates a host of negative feelings for you as a griever. Whether your dad’s suicide was the end of a long personal struggle in his life that you were aware of; or if it was a sudden and unexpected event for you, you are still left with a tremendous amount of unfinished emotional business. Which brings us to your other question: “Will I ever recover?”

The answer is that Recovery Is Possible, if you take the actions that will help you discover and complete what was left unfinished for you. Those actions are spelled out in The Grief Recovery Handbook.

Rather than “letting him go,” we want you to be able to remember him the way you knew him in life, rather than only in death; we want fond memories not to turn painful for you; and we want you to have a life of meaning and value even though he’s gone.